


Love Can Enter an Iron Door

by deborah_judge



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Captivity, F/M, New Caprica, Power Play, Religious Conflict, Religious Themes & References, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 03:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While imprisoned on New Caprica, Kara defeats Leoben three times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Can Enter an Iron Door

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: I'm not sure whether or not to warn for dubcon since there's no sex, but the whole situation is very nonconsensual. Also warning for violence, canon character death, attempted suicide.
> 
> I have written Kara/Leoben fic in which things get better for them, but this is set well before things start getting better. If you want to see them be good to each other, seriously, read one of my other stories.
> 
> Refers to [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reIU_seaJj8) deleted scene from "Occupation".
> 
> Title from [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77zzyy0_jOU).

Kara's first victory over Leoben isn't the first time she kills him. That happens almost immediately, as soon as she understands that what she had bartered for the medicines that saved her husband's life was not simply a few hours of awkward companionship over dinner but was in fact her freedom. The doors are barred. "I've seen you here," he says. "It's what God wants. You're going to hold me in your arms, you're going to embrace me, you're going to tell me that you love me. I've seen it." Maybe he's actually seen this. It doesn't mean she has to do it. She kills Leoben with a dinner knife. He's not even surprised.

"I forgive you," he says as he dies. "I do love you." She knows what his lies sound like, she's heard enough of them, and this doesn't sound like a lie, not when he whispers it through his dying lips.

While he's gone she checks all the doors and windows and looks for keys in every drawer and under every piece of furniture. There's no way out, everything's barred and there aren't any keys. Sam is alive, or was when she left, but he is not going to be able to save her. No one will. No one can.

Almost unconsciously, Kara feels herself bending a spoon with her hands. She looks down and she's formed something like a helmet at the tip. She pulls some threads from the sofa and ties them around the spoon for arms. Athena. Kara has the statue hidden in the cushions of the sofa by the time Leoben returns. As the days and weeks stretch she makes others. Artemis, who will protect her. Ares, because she needs him. She clutches Hera and prays for her husband. She holds them all in her hands at night, buried under the sofa, and Leoben doesn't see them. Her gods are with her, even here. She's not alone.

First victory.

The days seem endless. Leoben likes to tell her about Cylon history while she pretends not to listen. He asks her questions about herself, things like "Why do you like red?" or "What's your favourite part of the sky?" He tells her about her childhood. She answers with curses, and stabs him when he gets near enough and she can find something sharp. One day he brings her paint and a canvas. She won't paint in front of him but then he goes and sits in another room, like he can wait her out for as long as it takes. She paints a painting that looks like death. When he comes back he asks her why she used yellow, and why that straight line becomes a swirl, and she doesn't answer but he looks at it like he can see something deep inside her and whatever it is makes him smile. She thinks this victory might be his.

At night she touches herself and thinks about Sam. She had told Sam that she was going to visit Leoben, that he made a simple request of one visit after giving her the medicines. "Are you going to frak him?" Sam had asked, not seriously, and Kara had answered maybe, just because she knew better than to make her husband any promises about who she would or wouldn't frak. She'd already frakked two other men since they'd been married. The first was the week after her wedding just to prove she could, the second was a month later with some man she didn't know just because she was drunk and he was cute. Sam retaliated by hooking up with one of his Pyramid buddies and telling Kara all the details, which got her so hot and bothered that she just had to suck and lick every part of her husband's body that the other woman had touched.

"Maybe," Kara had said, leaning into her husband's embrace, "but I'd rather frak you."

Now that she's here Leoben's smell disgusts her. He talks about love and he doesn't know what it means. You can't love someone by imprisoning them. He waves his body in front of her like she's going to be seduced by its beauty but all she wants is for him to die in pain. So she kills him. She rips the end of a paintbrush through his neck, then tears his throat apart with her hands. She feels the pleasure he takes from her nearness and she spits in his face as he dies.

There's one thing left to try, one possible way to find what freedom she has. She locks herself in the bathroom with a razor she's hidden and draws it slowly up the inside of her arm. It could kill her. She might stop it in time. She might not, but in any case being here is worse than being forgotten. She doesn't have coins to pay Charon but Sam will find them for her, once he knows. She sits on the toilet and watches herself bleed.

It's less than a minute before Leoben breaks down the door. She doesn't resist as he binds her arm. "How can I make you see the life you could have?" he asks. "How can I do that?" She hears that he's begging, he sounds desperate, he's begging her to stay alive. His begging is sweet to her, it's just what she wants to hear. It tells her that he doesn't have the power to force her to live. It's up to her. That much power she has. She's seen the limits of her imprisonment, and they are no greater than the boundaries of her life.

Second victory.

Before every meal Leoben prays to the Heavenly Father. He likes to tell her about the One God of the Unknowable Name, the one who is beyond all understanding yet who governs this world in love. This God sends him visions, he says. Visions of her, and of the life that they will have together. "You are going to embrace me," he says, "you are going to hold me in your arms and tell me that you love me. I've seen it."

"Forget it," she says. "It'll never happen." She says it over and over because she needs to be sure.

She paints another painting. This one has cool blues and greens as well as fiery yellow and red. This time when Leoben asks her questions she answers them, and she hates how good it feels to be heard, how he takes in each of her words like they're precious to him. "I'm not going to love you," she says.

"You will," he answers. "I've seen it. It's what God wants. It's what God has shown me. You just need time."

She feels the time surrounding her. There's too much of it. It might swallow her if she doesn't act soon. At night she thinks about Sam. He'd want her to live. He knows what love means. She prays to Artemis, who smote the one who saw her bare. She prays to Athena, bestower of wisdom on the undeserving. She taught that we must love our comrades, and treat them as we would be treated. She prays to Ares, God of soldiers, who taught that we must love our enemies even as we fight them.

She thinks about Ares. She clutches her statue of him. Then she releases it, and for the first time in her imprisonment she goes upstairs to Leoben's bedroom.

The door is open and he wakes as soon as she enters it. He's naked, as if he were waiting for her. She thinks about Athena, teacher of all her children. She thinks about Aphrodite, who shares her body with all who hunger for it. She thinks about Hera, who watches over broken homes. She walks quickly over to the bed and sits down next to Leoben, right by his shoulder, and presses one finger to his lips.

"Don't say anything," she says. She thinks about Lord Ares. _Love even your enemy, though you must destroy him_. "I love you," she says.

He touches her arm. She can see the beginnings of joy on his face. She's not here to frak, though. Frakking is easy, even with someone she despises, and she's here to do something different. She thinks about Lady Hera and feels her love for all her children. She pushes his hand away and looks at him. "I love you," she says. She touches his face, letting herself feel the ridges and wrinkles, the strange roughness of his check, the inexplicable softness around his eyes.

"What are you doing, Kara?" he asks, and she can feel the fear under the longing. This isn't what he saw. This wasn't in his visions. How could it be? It's not from his god.

"I'm loving you," she says, and it's suddenly too hard and all she wants is to kill him again. She thinks about Lord Ares and it's not enough. She thinks about Artemis, and Aphrodite, and Lady Hera Mother of All. Then she notices the bedroom window. It has bars on it, behind the curtains, but through it she can see the beginnings of dawn.

Lady Aurora's light shines on all, the deserving and the undeserving, the righteous and the wicked, those who are human and those who are not. Kara feels Lady Aurora in her at the beginning of dawn, feels her giving light flow through her and around her. She looks down at Leoben's body. His makers formed him well. His penis is hard for her, it's sweet and thick and she thinks it would feel good inside her if she wanted it. She doesn't. He revolts her. She traces her fingers down his neck, almost throttles him but feels Lady Aurora shedding her light in dark places. "I love you," she says. And there are so many emotions on his face, the joy and the fear and the confusion. This wasn't what he thought her love would look like. But how would he know, poor thing, with only one miserable god to watch over him?

Third victory.

Kara rises and stands by the window. Aurora is with her, and Artemis and Athena and Hera and Zeus and Poseidon and all of them love her and for her and through her and all of them will love where she can't. She feels their strength in her. She is all of them. Leoben sits up and gapes at her in wonder and amazement like she's fulfilled his dreams and shattered them and yes, that's exactly it, that's exactly what she came here to do. With one motion she yanks the curtain rod from the window and brings it down across his forehead. He's still her enemy after all. That's the entire point. This time he's too confused to even remember to forgive her as he dies.

She goes back downstairs, takes her statues out from behind the pillows and looks at them in the light of day. They are meagre things, bent spoons and string, but they've kept watch over her. Leoben can imprison her, can keep her locked up here, but there's nothing more that he can do, not any more. He can't take anything from her that is any more than exactly and precisely what she is willing to give, on exactly the terms that she is willing to give it.

There's light in the apartment now. Aurora is with her, filling her with dawn. Leoben will be back soon, and their struggle isn't over, but for the moment Kara holds her gods, clutches them in her hand, and savours her precious, thrilling freedom.


End file.
